Located
between Hawaii and San Francisco, the Great
Pacific Garbage Patch is a floating column composed largely
of particulate plastic residues that may cover an area twice the size
of Texas. Exact determination of size is difficult, due to the
inability to image the area with satellite imagery (the particulate
polymeric residues which saturate the water are not visible via
satellite).

Even as "trash
patches" pop up in other oceans, The
Netherlands Architecture Fund has dreamed up a wild idea to
transform this "dirty" patch into a green paradise.
Under its plan, engineers would build "Recycle Island", a
floating island nation, from polymers both from the shore and from
those harvest from the water. The WHIM architecture
firm is collaborating on the project, looking at how an urban
paradise could be constructed in the unusual location.

The
project has three primary goals. The first is to create on-site
recycling of the particles of plastic floating in the water.
That would help with the second goal, which would be to establish a
stable and seaworthy island. Lastly, the island is to be
self-sufficient with its own sustainable food and energy
sources.

Under the plan, the island would cover 10,000 km2,
roughly the size of Hawaii’s main island. The island would be
its own nation, with its own laws. It would sustain
agriculture, in part, from "fertile ground" formed from
compost toilets. The project founders say it would be an ideal
home for "climate refugees".

Ideas floated for power
include solar, wave, and wind energies. Seaweed would be farmed
for fertilizer, food, fish farm feed, biofuel, CO2 capture, and
medicine. Chemicals like ammonia, nitrate, phosphate would be
harvested from the water in the trash patch.

The project is
starting out small, currently looking to gather samples of the
water/plastic mix in the garbage patch. Its organizers are
reaching out to recruit chemists and engineers to help figure out the
ideal way to recycle the slew into usable material for their
envisioned island paradise.

The idea is outlandish and at this
point seems unlikely (if merely for economic reasons), but it does
seem a charmingly futurist vision. The full project plan can be
found here.

"Paying an extra $500 for a computer in this environment -- same piece of hardware -- paying $500 more to get a logo on it? I think that's a more challenging proposition for the average person than it used to be." -- Steve Ballmer